The line is getting thinner, darling
by TitaniaSarys
Summary: The wound was too deep, they said. It was bound to get infected, they said. And it had. [Fallen Kingdom SPOILERS]
1. FIVE MINUTES AFTER

He kept pacing in her room, not really knowing what to do.

The only sounds present were the echoes of his muddied boots on the pristine clean floor and the constant beeping of the machines. He spared one glance at the figure lying in the too-white bed, then another at the monitors to make sure that everything was indeed fine.

Nothing had changed in the last six hours and Owen was growing restless.

The nurse that came to check up on Claire shot him a pitiful look as she handed him a bag of ice wrapped up in a towel. Owen thanked her with a nod and pressed the cold material to the side of his face, now swollen. The doctor that had patched his knuckles up had assured him that there was no permanent damage to his face, that he only needed to keep the swelling down, hence the ice pack.

Owen couldn't believe it had only been a few minutes. He could still hear the girl's anxious cries, her small body being whisked away as Owen fought with the police officers. They had to restrain him, or he would have destroyed half the furniture in the room in his anger and desperation to reach the girl.

But they took her away.

And he was helpless. He couldn't even defend her. He couldn't protect her like he had promised.

And what would Claire say?

Despite everything, he was still glad she was unconscious when it all happened. But she had the right to know and he'd need to tell her, sooner than later. Because he was fairly certain she would ask for Maisie the minute she was lucid enough to notice she was still stuck in a hospital bed and that the girl was nowhere to be seen.

Once the nurse left, Owen turned to Claire's sleeping form and sat in the chair he had been occupying for the last six hours. One hand still held the ice pack to his face, while the other gently grabbed her left hand, mindful of the IV. He fought the urge to replace a stray lock of hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. She was getting paler by the hour and, despite the nurse's silence, Owen knew Claire's prognostic did not look good.

The wound was too deep, they said.

It was bound to get infected, they said.

And it had.

Dammnit it had and Owen had just stood there, watching the doctors helplessly and only half listening to what they were telling him about Claire's injuries, his head suddenly deep underwater as flashes of bloodied teeth filled his vision.

"You have to wake up," he chocked and for the first time in hours, tears spilled down his face. "I need you Claire."


	2. SEVEN HOURS BEFORE

"Owen…"

At the sound of his name, Owen immediately turned to Claire and caught her as she swayed in the hospital plastic chair, her head falling on his shoulder. Maisie was asleep on his other side, dead to the world and half sprawled on her own chair, half lying in Owen's lap. The girl initially wanted to snuggle to Claire, but didn't want to aggravate her injuries, so she went to sit next to Owen instead.

She had been awfully quiet during the whole hour it took them to drive to the nearest hospital, Owen insisting Claire got her leg checked up. It worried him that Claire hadn't put up a fight, that she was so hurt and tired that she could barely keep her eyes open.

"I… what are we going to do about her?" Claire asked, her voice barely above a whisper and Owen had to strain his ears to understand what she was saying.

"Well, I thought we could keep her," he answered, one glance at the little girl telling him she was still sound asleep, her mouth just occasionally twitching as her brows furrowed because of some nightmare.

"I don't know if we can… the law…"

"I'll be damned if they take her from us."

He felt Claire smile in his shoulder and he dropped a kiss to her hair.

"Whatever it takes, we'll fight for her Claire. She trusts us."

"Good."

He forced Claire to stay awake, telling her embarrassing stories about his youth, some of which she already knew. She remained mostly silent, but he knew she was listening from the way her breath caught sometimes or how she would smile or frown against his dirty shirt. She didn't move even once, as if the simple thought of moving her injured leg was too unpleasant.

A doctor took them rather quickly to a room nearby, Owen taking Maisie in his arms. The girl didn't even stir, exhausted beyond measure. Claire made the doctor promise to take a look at her once she was awake before she even allowed him to take a look at her own leg. From the look on the doctor's face, Owen immediately knew that Claire's injury was worse than what he thought and he cursed himself for his carelessness.

Claire hadn't showed any immediate sign of suffering, keeping her mouth tightly shut during the whole drive and biting the inside of her cheek whenever they hit a bump in the road. Zia did a decent patch-up job with their limited supplies before she left for San Francisco with Franklin to meet with their families, but Claire required a full surgery and fast. She was scheduled within the hour.

When a nurse had come with a wheelchair to take Claire so she could get prepped for the surgery, it was almost as if Owen was losing her all over again. He lost her once in the year following the Jurassic World incident, both of them too stubborn for their own good. And he almost lost her at least a dozen times on the island and in the Lockwood mansion. He was not going to let that happen again.

But he couldn't come with her and he couldn't leave Maisie.

He felt like the kiss they shared, rushed and desperate, as she was sat in the wheelchair, was the last he would ever get to experience with her. He could read the fear, plain as day in her eyes, and squeezed her hand before she was wheeled away, looking at him for as long as she could.

"Watch over her," was the last thing she said before her red mane disappeared around the corner.


	3. THIRTY MINUTES AFTER

By the time Owen was fed up with the ice pack and had simply decided to ditch it in the nearest trashcan, Claire's condition went from ' _not so good'_ to ' _definitely bad'_. Sweat was pouring down her face, her forehead and cheeks were red and fresh tears could be seen. Her whole body was trembling and her skin felt clammy under his touch.

She opened her feverish eyes, but the lush green wasn't quite there. Instead, Owen was met with a dull green, almost grey. She didn't seem to be able to focus on him and moved her head aimlessly from side to side.

"Owen?" she asked, her voice so broken it pained Owen and made him want to punch a wall.

"I'm here," he said, trying to sound reassuring, both his hands now holding her small one, as if to protect it from the ugliness and harshness of the world outside.

"Owen…" she was rambling, panic lacing in her voice as her throat constricted every few seconds, showing how difficult it was for her to speak. She was looking right at him but it seemed like she couldn't see him. It was all whimpers and tears for a few minutes, Claire's restless body shaking and rumpling the sheets.

"It's okay, you're gonna be okay Claire, hey look at me," he said as he pressed a button on a console to call the nurse. But it was as if Claire couldn't hear him, as if he was completely transparent. But she did squeeze his hand, so desperately yet so weakly Owen had to hold it so it wouldn't fall out of his grasp.

He squeezed back and was glad to see a glimmer of hope on her confused features. "Owen?" she asked with a little more confidence, her fingers almost scratching at his wrist in her quest to find him, as if he was her only tether in this world, her life line, her anchor.

"Owen… you have to find her." She winced and her breathing became so labored, she had to stop talking for a while. "You… she's all alone…"

Owen immediately felt a pang of guilt. How could Claire know that Maisie had been taken? She wasn't conscious when it happened. "You have to… please… don't let it harm her…" She was crying even harder now and Owen couldn't tell if it was from pain or fear. "I'll be fine, just… go get her…"

It dawned on him that Claire was reliving the moment in the exposition at the Lockwood's manor, right before Owen left her to protect Maisie from the Indoraptor. He brushed a stray hair from her face and she seemed to relax under his touch, the smallest of smiles appearing briefly on her lips before she leaned forward so brutally she almost tore the needles out of her flesh.

The nurse came at that moment and helped Owen get Claire to lie back on the pillows. Just as he was asking what the hell was going on, more nurses came in and ushered him out. He saw someone lift the blankets off of Claire's leg and the sight of the infected wound almost made him gag.

He was about to punch one of the doctors who was holding him back and was a few seconds away from calling security when Claire suddenly calmed down. One of the nurses pulled back an empty syringe and rearranged Claire's sheets and pillows while a doctor was looking at her wound. They prescribed her more antibiotics and did an extra exam on her leg, but Owen walked out of the room at that moment, his head underwater.

He needed fresh air, he couldn't think. One of the nurses went outside with him, saying it was time for her break, and later bought him a cup of coffee. They didn't talk much, besides the "thank you" and "you're welcome" and Owen was glad when she didn't try to force him to talk. He needed to think, think about Claire's worsening state, think about how to get Maisie back. He didn't even know where to start.

As the nurse left him sitting there next to a vending machine in a corridor, she squeezed his shoulder and told him she'd bring an extra blanket and pillow for him to Claire's room. He silently watched her leave and made sure he remembered her name.


	4. EIGHT HOURS AFTER

Claire went into respiratory failure when he was finally asleep in the chair next to her bed, wrapped in the blanket the nurse had provided, the pillow nestled between the plastic surface and his back. The alarm on the monitors tore him from his sleep, making him literally fall from his chair.

The next moment, people swarmed the room again and this time, the doctor didn't even try to ask Owen to get out, he blatantly demanded it before turning back to Claire and doing whatever was necessary to keep her alive.

The next hours were a rollercoaster for Owen. One minute, Claire was peacefully sleeping, only moaning from time to time because of the pain in her leg. Her forehead was hot to the touch, her whole body wrecked by a fever as it fought the infection. The next moment, the machines were all acting up, Claire not even waking up like the first time.

It took eight hours for Owen to really believe she would be okay, because that's when her fever broke. She was still in that grey area when it wasn't certain she would actually make it, but for the first time she was admitted for surgery, the doctor didn't seem so pessimistic. And when Claire wasn't surrounded by members of the medical staff, Owen would hold her hand and tell her stories and even random things, partly because that was all he could do, partly because he believed that, maybe, she could hear him and the sound of his voice would comfort her.

When Claire woke up the next time, her respiratory mask was still attached to her face. Shaking the numbness away, she clawed at it, moaning in frustration and frowning, still half-asleep but conscious enough to realize something wasn't right. Owen gently grabbed both her wrists and held her hands.

"Hey, it's okay Claire. You have to leave the mask on for now. Doctors' orders."

She looked at him and it seemed like she was really seeing him this time, her lush green orbs focusing on his face. She simply nodded and her head fell back against the pillows. She didn't say anything but her thumb traced random patterns on the back of his hand until she fell asleep again.

Owen changed the cloth on her forehead, checked her monitors and listened to her breathing. It was still slightly rushed, but gone was the rasping and wheezing. The doctors had warned Owen that her fever could get worse, that Claire wasn't out of the woods yet but Owen was hoping she would get better. He stayed by her side until the nurse, Sharon, the one who brought him a blanket and a pillow, told him to go eat something and shower.

Owen appreciated that she made a joke about his state. Laughing, albeit slightly, made him feel better. Humor and sarcasm had always been his ways of coping, that and running. Whereas Claire's coping mechanisms were facing things head on and taking on more work until her body was numb with exhaustion.

But he wasn't running now.

So he showered, grabbed something to eat from the hospital's cafeteria and even brought Sharon a coffee. She said he didn't have to but thanked him and left them once again. By the time Claire woke up again, this time not needing the respiratory mask, Owen had thought about the way they could get Maisie back. It was the most likely she had been put in some kind of child center before a court would decide what to do with her. Because Owen was pretty sure that once they figured out she was a clone (from the way police swarmed the Lockwood manor, it was only a matter of time before Lockwood's work was discovered), they might reconsider putting her in foster care.

He had to find Iris. The woman could testify and if all else failed and Claire and Owen wouldn't be able to adopt Maisie, maybe Iris could take care of her. But to find Iris, he needed to be sure Claire would be okay. Hell, she'd probably kill him if he left her to rot in this hospital; he knew how she didn't like to sit around doing nothing.

So he waited until she was conscious enough, until the doctors examined her again and until they were alone before telling her how he had massively screwed up and how he was planning on fixing it.


	5. SEVERAL MINUTES BEFORE

I'm not a doctor or a police officier, and my knowledge in those fields (I did study medicine and law for a short while) isn't enough to know what would really happen in a situation like this. So, sorry if it's not how it would have happened in real life.

* * *

"What's going on?" Maisie asked, grabbing Owen's hand when a commotion could be heard in the corridor outside. Claire was out of surgery and was resting in the bed, her ashen face still pale with tinges of red on her cheeks and forehead from what the doctors feared would be one hell of a fever.

"I don't know," Owen answered honestly while standing up. "Stay here with Claire, alright? I'll check it out."

Maisie nodded and took Owen's place on the chair. She held Claire's hand for a few seconds before turning to Owen and saying "Be careful," as if he was about to fight some dinosaurs. Owen simply smiled.

He walked out of the room and faced two police officers accompanied by a man in a suit. One of the nurses pointed at Owen.

"Are you Owen Grady?" The first officer asked, a black woman in her late twenties, whose name tag read Officer Torres.

"That's me. What's going on? We already gave you a statement at the manor."

Officer Torres' partner, a white man in his early forties named Officer Cassidy, stepped forward. "We'd like to ask you more questions. And see the girl, if that's alright."

Owen hesitated for a moment. He had nothing against answering some questions, now that Claire's injury was taken care of and that she was resting. He also didn't think it would be a big deal if they spoke to Maisie either, since she had already spoken to law enforcement officers before, giving the same statement Owen, Claire, Zia and Franklin had (saying that they had no idea how the dinosaurs had escaped). But he didn't like that other man in a suit who had his hands in his pockets and wasn't saying a word.

"Sure. But let's do the questions somewhere else. I don't want to disturb the other patients."

Officer Torres nodded and opened her arm to the corridor, allowing Owen to choose the place where they would question him. He was thinking about one of the waiting rooms, by that time of day they should be mostly empty. But he barely walked five feet in that direction that the man in the suit walked past him and put his hand on the door to Claire's room.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Owen snapped, immediately walking back his steps and putting his body between the man and the door.

It was true that Owen could be impressive. He was taller than the average man, more muscular and built like a professional weightlifter. And he could be scary when he was in full papa bear protector mode. He didn't miss the way Officer Cassidy's hand rested above his service gun, or the way Officer Torres hissed at her partner's move. But the man in the suit didn't budge.

"Mr. Grady, I ask you for the first and last time to get out of my way," the man in the suit said."

"Who are you and what do you want? A woman is resting in there; I won't let you disturb her."

The man in the suit sighed and pulled out his work badge. "Michael Briggs. Social services. I am here to pick up Maisie Lockwood and to bring her to the Children Care Center in San Francisco where she will await the trial that will determine her fate. It is only procedure."

"Like hell you are." Owen didn't want to yell and immediately regretted it when he heard noise behind the door. Maisie was probably standing right behind him and listening to the conversation.

"Mr. Grady, I understand your urge to protect this girl but neither you nor Miss Dearing are her legal guardians. Seeing as she is now an orphan, she will be taken care of by the State of California. You can send word to the court processing her case if you want to try and adopt her, but she's coming with me."

It took Owen's entire willpower not to punch the man right where he stood. And when Briggs moved to push Owen out of the way, he found himself in a chokehold between Owen's beefy arms.

In the end, it all happened too quickly.

Briggs managed to clock Owen one in the eye, proving that he wasn't just some meager desk officer. Which resulted in Owen getting into a full blown fistfight in the hospital corridor. Nurses yelled and shielded the patients, while also trying to hold onto the medical equipment around them. Officer Cassidy tried to break the fight and Officer Torres tried to reason with them.

Officer Cassidy was the one who managed to grab a hold of Owen while Officer Torres held Briggs back. While Owen was still struggling against Officer Cassidy, his face swelling slowly, Briggs entered the room. Maisie shrieked when she saw him and Owen all but threw Officer Cassidy against the wall (but thankfully, he managed to catch himself and didn't get injured).

Briggs already had one hand on Maisie's arm when Owen came barreling into the room, pushing aside a chair in his angry walk. He was punching Briggs again when Officer Torres managed to snap the first half of a pair of handcuffs around his wrist. He almost punched her too, but Officer Cassidy helped her and they effectively handcuffed him.

Maisie was screaming so loud Owen thought she might wake Claire up. Briggs half dragged her, half carried her out of the room and was followed by one of the nurses. Owen tried to pounce after him but Officer Cassidy was in his way.

"Stop it! You're lucky if Mr. Briggs doesn't sue you for that fight. And you're lucky you didn't hit one of us, otherwise it would have been straight to the station!" Officer Torres yelled in his face.

And just like that, Owen stopped thrashing. The police officers could very well take him for hitting the other guy. And if they did, he wouldn't be able to stay with Claire. Officer Torres seemed to read his thoughts, because she told her partner to go after Briggs to make sure the girl was treated right. When her partner was gone, she quickly looked at Claire, before turning to Owen.

"I'll let it slide just this once. Briggs might sue you anyway. Don't try to catch up to them or I really will have to taze you." She sighed and unlocked his handcuffs. "Don't make me take you away from her. She needs you," she motioned towards Claire.

And with that, she was out of the room.


End file.
